The Naming of Cats
by Grav
Summary: The naming of cats is a difficult matter.


**AN**: It's a bandwagon! I jumped on it. It's…kind of happy?

**Spoilers**: Nothing, really.

**Disclaimer**: I do not own Sanctuary, and the poem is called "The Naming of Cats", made famous by TS Elliot and later Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber.

**Rating**: Kid friendly

**Characters**: Ashley Magnus, Helen Magnus, Henry Foss, The Big Guy

**Summary**: The naming of cats is a difficult matter.

* * *

**The Naming of Cats**

_The naming of cats is a difficult matter,  
It isn't just one of your holiday games  
You may think, at first, I'm as mad as a hatter  
When I tell you a cat must have three different names…_

_1. First of all, there's the name that the family use daily_

Ashley rescued the kitten when she was nine. She'd run away from home (again), and to her great disappointment arrived back at the Sanctuary with her new pet to discover that her mother hadn't even missed her yet, which rather negated the whole thing. The kitten, however, got her mother's immediate attention.

"What is that?" Helen asked.

"It's a cat," Ashley said, as though that should be obvious. "Just a cat, don't worry. I found it."

"Let me see," Helen said, holding out her arms, and Ashley passed it over.

Ashley watched her mother give the kitten a brief, yet thorough inspection. Ashley already knew what she'd find. The kitten had no collar, and looked like it hadn't eaten properly in while. It was a girl-kitten, as well, with sharp nails that Ashley appreciated.

"A bit of food and she'll be fine," Helen said, handing the kitten back to her daughter.

Ashley looked at her mother, determined that this time, this one time, she wasn't going to crack. She willed herself to stand very still, harder than usual since the kitten was becoming squirmy now that it had warmed up, but it wasn't long before she couldn't take her mother's silent treatment any longer.

"I'll feed her and take care of her," she promised. "She can live in my room. Cats like high places. You'll never even know she's here."

Her mother said nothing.

"I know she's just a normal cat, but it was cold outside and – " Ashley trailed off as her mother held up a hand.

"It's all right, Ashley," she said. "You can keep the cat. We'll start putting aside some of your allowance to pay for its things, but I can probably take care of its veterinary check ups myself."

"Thanks mom," Ashley said, and moved forward to hug her mother with the cat caught up between them. It meowed in protest, and they laughed.

"What are you going to call her?" Helen said.

* * *

_2. But I tell you, a cat needs a name that's particular, a name that's peculiar and more dignified_

Henry didn't know what sort of house he'd lived in before he came to the Sanctuary, but he assumed it hadn't been one with a cat. He could overlook the allergies, the constant sneezing and the runny nose, because the cat actually did keep the vermin down in the sublevels. Even the abnormal vermin, which had quite impressed the Doc on account of the cat being about half the size of the _ratus abnormalis_ it proudly presented to her one evening over dessert.

What Henry couldn't deal with was the cat's strange fixation with electronics. His bedroom was usually safe enough, so long as he made absolutely sure the door latch caught before he walked off, but it had got to the point where he couldn't keep anything in his lab that was even remotely "in progress", because the cat would quite happily spend hours shredding the wiring while he was out of the room.

He had an all out row about it with Ashley, which he lost, of course, to his great embarrassment because she was smaller than he was. All he'd asked was that she keep it shut up in her rooms when it wasn't mousing, but Ashley had refused, and Henry hadn't been able to make her change her mind.

Which, of course, was exactly how he came to be standing at the entrance to his lab, having left to grab lunch after making absolutely sure, thanks to the security feed, that the cat was patrolling in the basement, only to find the various components of the scanner he was constructing strewn willy-nilly across his workstation.

Henry grabbed the cat by the scruff of its neck, ignoring the yowls of protest that brought Ashley running in from the main lab to see what all the fuss was about. She took one look at the lab and started laughing, much to Henry's chagrin, but she held out her arms for the cat in a way that was at least semi-apologetic.

The cat took a swing at Henry, but missed, as Henry passed it off.

"Why you stuck up, half-witted, scruffy looking, _nerf herder_!"

"Oh, come on, Henry!" Ashley said. "We decided ages ago that there's no such thing as a nerf."

* * *

_3. But above and beyond, there's still one name left over, and that is the name that you never will guess_

When the cat is old, it spends most of its time in the Big Guy's room. It's quiet there, for starters, and it smells like outside, which is not something the rest of the Sanctuary can claim. On an average day, the smells range from "on fire" to "has been on fire" to "might be on fire soon" to "gross", with a side of antiseptic, depending on how close to the infirmary you are.

At first, the Big Guy isn't sure how he feels about sharing his room with the cat, but Ashley has trained it well, and it is comforting to curl up with, once it realizes that long hair is not for clawing at in the middle of the night. His people don't keep pets, and he wonders what they'd say to see him with one, but at the same time he knows he doesn't really care. He's given up far too much already for the cat to be what changes the balance of his judgment.

Ashley is disappointed when she figures out that the reason the cat is avoiding her is that it can no longer climb the stairs to her tower room. She wouldn't mind carrying it, but she appreciates its wish for what limited freedoms it has remaining, so she lets it be. It still perches on her knees in the library when they sit in front of the fire, still arches its back against her hands when she coddles it, and licks her face when she gets too close.

It's not an old cat, eight or nine years depending on its age when Ashley found it, but those first few months of its life might have robbed it of a few years at the end, the Big Guy thinks. It stares at him with bright eyes, and he thinks he can see stories there that it hasn't told another living soul. The cat is absolutely normal, Magnus made sure of that, but there is something to be said for animal intelligence, and if nothing else, that's a lesson the Sanctuary teaches all too well.

When he realizes the end is near, small proof that his people's gifts have not completely abandoned him, he sends for Ashley, and the three of them sit on his bed while the cat breathes slower and more slowly, until it doesn't breathe at all.

"I'll miss you," Ashley whispers, with tears in her eyes. She watches while the Big Guy wraps the small body in one of her scarves.

"The apple tree, I think," he says, and Ashley nods.

"I always got the feeling there was something she wanted to tell me," Ashley says. Her mother would have nodded. Henry would have scoffed. The Big Guy only takes her hand and squeezes it.

"I know," he says. "That's the nature of cats."

_When you notice a cat in profound meditation  
The reason, I tell you, is always the same:  
His mind is engaged in a rapt contemplation  
Of the thought…of the though…  
Of his name_.

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**fin**

Gravity_Not_Included, March 22, 2011**  
**


End file.
